☤ RainwaterWitch ☤

One thing the occult is very good at is coming up with systems to categorize and conceptualize things. These can be incredibly useful to us in various ways. But we also have to remember that these systems we come up with are mere constructs, and the actual world itself probably doesn't conform to them as we might like. As the saying goes, all maps are wrong. But as the saying also goes, some maps are useful, and some are more useful than others.

One thing that often comes up in esoteric and occult systems are various forms of binaries or polarities. This often makes sense; for example, without light, you have dark. Without heat, you have cold. One party gives, the other takes. Creatures are born, and eventually they die.

But we can run into problems when we start trying to lump all apparent forms of polarities and dualities together. Here's an example: Life/Death, Masculine/Feminine. In doing this, we create an association that might lead us toward some terrible ways of thinking about real people. If we associate masculinity with death, we can find ourselves thinking that waging war and inventing weapons of death is just what men and masc people do, but women can always be counted on to be diplomats and peacekeepers. Or if we associate femininity with death, we might find ourselves more inclined to think that women and femmes have a natural desire to commit infanticide and tear apart societies, and they must be carefully watched and their freedoms limited so they don't upend civilization and endanger the human race.

These are of course extreme examples, but they are real ways that some people think. And you might think to yourself, "well, I don't polarize genders this way, I think people should try to be a healthy balance of masculine and feminine." And if this is you, I want you to ask yourself why you're so attached to categorizing traits as "masculine" and "feminine" at all.

If you're like most people, you probably just came across this in some form of occult or spiritual literature and just adopted it without really asking yourself too many questions about it. When we see something framed as ancient or higher wisdom, it's pretty easy to take it fairly uncritically, especially if it aligns with our unconscious biases in some way. It often doesn't cross our minds to ask where these terms really come from, and what they signified in their original contexts.

You may have heard that male/female stuff has roots in alchemy, which is true. But the thing with alchemy is that it was using familiar terms and concepts to describe chemical processes and reactions. Think of it a little bit like how we use terms like "male plugs" and "female plugs." While old-time alchemy did have a spiritual component to it, it was more about believing that you had to be spiritually pure to make your desired alchemical reactions happen. When alchemy gave way to chemistry, and people began to realize that your spiritual condition had nothing to do with your ability to make things happen in the lab, certain people began to seek more mystical meanings in the works of alchemists, and this idea of masculinity and femininity as transcendent mystical forces unto themselves really started to emerge. It was an incredibly easy concept to project on all kinds of mythologies, because a lot of myths have male and female figures interacting in various ways.

Now the thing is, having myths with male and female figures doesn't mean seeing masculinity and femininity as discrete forces or powers unto themselves. It can mean that they simply personified various figures as male or female depending on what their own experiences and cultural biases suggested to them. For example, straight men tend to think of love and lust as something they experience when they see a beautiful woman. In a patriarchal society, where men are calling most of the shots in conceptualizing the divine, a love deity is thus likely to be personified as a beautiful woman. Straight men can also see beautiful women as a source of discord and strife, so it makes sense that love goddesses would have war aspects to them.

A society where men are sent to war while wives are left behind to raise the children and tend the farm is going to produce an association with men and violence, while the act of nurturing will be associated with women. Men who deny higher education to women are going to produce a society where intellectual pursuits and higher abstract reasoning are associated with masculinity, and intuition and practical knowledge are associated with women. A society where men are seen as bringers of social order and upholders of civilization while women are viewed more like forces of nature than rational actors will associate men with civilization and women with natural, wild spaces.

In continuing to associate these characteristics with the "divine feminine" and the "divine masculine," we preserve and perpetuate the implicit biases created by these patriarchal societies. And while there is absolutely value in saying, "hey, these 'feminine' things are actually valuable and worth respect actually," framing them as intrinsically feminine in any sense - physically, psychologically, or metaphysically - will undermine any effort to dismantle patriarchy and bring true equality.

So what can you do? I would suggest being more specific.

Do you mean passive/active? Then just say it.

Do you mean giver/receiver? Then just say it.

Do you mean harmonizing/disrupting? Then just say it.

There was Alex Sanders, who is one person who practiced British traditional withcraft (="wicca") who might be the tree so many people are barking up when they throw in the pervy old man accusations (no hate to the Alexandrian sis' and bros, but we should acknowledge when our folk have done things not in line with our own morality, his lovers and wife were apparently very young). G.B. Gardner (original founder of the initatory line of British traditional witchcraft, nowadays known as wicca) was just a regular old nudist, and apparently, a decent man, from what I've heard second-hand from people who actually knew him personally (some of them still live, but indeed they are very old by now). I don't know about his relationships, except that he was married with a wife.

No wiccan I know and have practiced with insists on the bioessentialism, or the concept of fertility as a cisheteronormative reproductive thing. As far as I've understood, it's a vocal minority of wiccans in the USA who have such views, the USA culture having a tendency for fundamentalism overall. No hate to the sis' and bros in USA covens who are doing their thing, you do you, and I know not all of you are trans-exclusionary etc. As the eclectic wiccans especially love to quote: "and it harm none, do what you will." Fun fact: Rede is not in fact the wiccan bible. Another fun fact: that quote is most likely Aleister Crowley's influence, and if most eclectics knew this, and who A. Crowley even was, they wouldn't likely so happily quote that bit. That's the real dude you should be cancelling! (I appreciate him as a magician and poet, but holy shit my dude!)

My point being: even those who say "know where your spirituality comes from" don't often know where it comes from. Who's seldom contributing to these conversations about wicca is actual practitioners of wicca. Eclectic wiccans are valid, they're doing their own thing, but they often don't know, are not even interested, or dont have access to actual lore of the craft, so often they are ill-equipped to refute these kinds of broad-stroke accusations. They might even be part of the real problems people do perceive: appropriation, spiritual commercialism, cults of personality, fascist pipelines... And they do these things while calling themselves wiccans, which I am in no position to refute, but it does give us all a bad name.

And I know there are those among us traditional wiccans too, who will have different opinions from mine: some wiccans will be bioessentialist, maybe even fascist. Some, like myself, are trans, and embraced fully in my corner of the community. Some of us will have done bad things, like abuse others. We are all human, no group is immune to having these people among their number. (And we don't have to accept or get along with everyone, in my opinion). But I also know that we British Traditional Witchcraft practitioners aka traditional wiccans, as a community, are aware of these issues, we talk about it, and our history; it's wrongs, and we acknowledge, reflect, and adapt, and find ways to be more inclusive and non-appropriative. That's not "changing the craft", that's being a living tradition.

All that said, I'm just one wicca and I in no way represent the community as a whole, or even my coven. My opinions are my own and my experiences in the craft are personal to me.

If someone had a wiccan phase in their teens after reading outdated or biased material, and was disappointed they didn't discover a genuine, ancient witch cult after all, and got bitter, starting to diss wicca as a whole, well, too bad for them. If someone had an annoying roommate who was likely this person before they discovered the same, well, that's awkward I guess. There's books out there, by multitude of authors who may or may not have genuine intentions, anyone can read them and call themselves a wicca. This "anyone" will include many kinds of people, some of who will be annoying, or even dangerous. But aside from the eclectics, even among the traditional (initiatory) wiccans, we are not a monolith. Most importantly, we are not an USAmerican monolith. It's just that the USA wiccans seem to dominate the online discourse, especially those with hinge beliefs about gender and bioessentialism (they are not even the majority of wiccans, at least not in Europe). The scene may look very different to US over here in Europe overall, due to local culture and history. I'm sure it's swarming with grifters over in the US, and they are here in Europe too, but they're not all there is.

Just like with any religion, there are those who seek their own benefit on others' expense. They're hard to completely avoid in any group. If you seek religious or spiritual community, around those communities will be those who want power over others. We try to spot those folk and be wary of them. But no religion is free of abusers, grifters and hopeful cult leaders; not Christians, not wiccans. But some people do find meaning and fulfillment in religion and being in related communities, and while seeking them is an exercise in critical thinking and self-reflection of what it is that we truly seek, the good ones are out there. Whether it's worth it for you, or you have been burned too many times, that's your prerogative to decide.

But if there are seekers of traditional wicca out there, who want a community but are afraid that all they'll find is cultish woo-woo, I would say: keep seeking, be critical, and ask around. Be wary of isolated groups whom no-one in the wider community knows, or who try to isolate you. Never pay for teaching; aside from covering material costs, wiccans never teach the craft for profit, and certainly never ever sell initiations for money, or anything else. Don't be pressured into sex, this will not be required, and anyone claiming otherwise is a predator, not someone worth practicing with or learning from. I can warmly recommend Thorn Mooney's book on seeking traditional wicca, though it is from an USAmerican perspective, so your mileage may wary depending where you're from. And lastly, if you're gay, trans, other, person of color, there is a wiccan community for you, if you seek it. You are welcome. One person or one coven does not speak for all of us. Some covens will accommodate more than others, but I know some covens are fully gender neutral in their ritual language, for example. Some are led by trans high priestesses and priests or nonbinary priestixes. All of them have been welcome to the wider community (speaking for my experience in Europe).

Imbolg

Bonfire

Ostara

Bonfire

Beltain

Bonfire

Litha

Bonfire

Lammas

Bonfire

Mabon

Bonfire

Samhain

Bonfire

Yule

I'm going to bring back the wisdom of the ever wise @traegorn, my favorite Wiccan, again here.

Was Gardner a racist? I mean, he was an upper-middle class British man who lived in the late 19th through mid 20th century... so of course he was. But being racist is not the same as being a white supremacist. White supremacism is a racist ideology, but it is far more than that.

Secondly, none of that makes Wicca itself inherently racist. If a racist writes a cupcake recipe, that cupcake recipe doesn't become racist. Additionally, Wicca (while founded by Gardner) was equally put together by Doreen Valiente. Who, again, might have been a racist person (find me a white British person from the 20th century who never did anything racist and I'll eat my hat), but definitely not a white supremacist.

If you're going to make massive declarations like that, you better come to the table with proof. And if you think everyone should stop doing anything that a problematic person ever did, even if that thing itself was not the problematic thing... you're going to find out pretty much everything in witchcraft will end up being offlimits.

PURITY CULTURE IS BULLSHIT

CRITICAL THINKING IS YOUR FRIEND

THERE'S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROBLEMATIC AND EVIL

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SACRED

GET OFFLINE FOR FIVE SECONDS

AND LEARN WHAT NUANCE IS